By Robyn Taliaferro
I started doing this because I have al-
ways been interested in scent work. I
went to the LaSalle Parish Sheriff's
Department to talk to the canine
trainer. I initially wanted to learn
about tracking but was interested in
other scent training as well. Since I
am not a policeman- I could not train
for drugs and actually use it, so ca-
daver was the logical choice. I con-
vinced the police canine trainer, Daryl
Husbands, to help me. Daryl is a
USPCA nationally certified judge and also is certified to train cadaver dogs. I think he
was just trying to be nice and agreed that I could bring Isabelle out when they were
training narcotics. They use Belgian Malinois so they were a little surprised when I got a
cattle dog out of the crate the first day. Especially because she would jump on my shoul-
ders with her front legs and let me carry her like a baby ....I am sure they were im-
pressed:)
We are using pseudo corpse scent, which is very expensive, and human hair. We are
burying the scent in the ground.....and she is finding them. I have learned
ALOT ........because I have to be very quick on the reinforcement because she doesn't
really have what Daryl calls "high drive" which is needed to do this kind of work. The
ideal dog has a very high drive and wants to search for the toy NO MATTER WHAT. The
toy initially has the scent is hidden in it. I started with a PVC pipe about 8 inches long
with the scent on a gauze pad stuffed in it and let her play with it and let her chase it - I
had it on a string that I could pull and get her to chase it. She loved to chase it, but she
lacks "possessiveness"- which is what Daryl says will make her want to find the scent
consistently. Regardless, I did this everyday for weeks. Then we put the gauze in glass
salt shakers and started just putting the shaker under stuff like leaves or pine straw.
When she learned to find those, we moved on to burying it. We started about 3 inches
deep and now we are at about 6 inches deep. Then Daryl decided - Show quoted text -
Isabelle had a "soft mouth" and didn't like the PVC very much as a toy and I had to find a
(Continued on page 15)
SPOTLIGHT on Dogs with Jobs
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